KANSAS CITY, Mo. — This is going in the wrong direction.
The Detroit Tigers, at the most inopportune time, lost their third straight game and their sixth out of seven, a dispiriting 5-2 defeat against the Kansas City Royals on Aug. 21, at Kauffman Stadium.
Slip-sliding away.
“We have a lot of new faces,” said Zach McKinstry, who doubled in one of the Tigers’ runs and scored the other in the seventh inning. “A lot of young guys in the lineup who haven’t really been through it yet. And then you lose Greeney (All-Star Riley Greene), which is always hard. He’s a staple in our lineup. It kind of sucks. But you just continue to remind yourself that every day is a day you can go out and compete and help the team win.”
He’s not making excuses. He’s telling the truth. The Tigers weren’t meant to be trying to claw their way into the postseason with a lineup like Friday that featured five rookies. They weren’t meant to be doing this without Greene, without Kerry Carpenter, without Matt Vierling, without Jack Flaherty, without Will Vest, without Parker Meadows, without Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize and Jake Rogers.
“The last seven games have been tough,” said rookie Kevin McGonigle, who had two hits and an RBI. “But everyone in here is still confident and still going about their business really well. Pregame, even postgame, guys are staying in the weight room and training room making sure they’re ready to go. That will never change because of a bad stretch. If anything, it’s going to make us better.
“We’re going to have to stay focused and keep playing the brand of ball we’ve been playing. Just keep competing and playing hard.”
Time is running short. There are 34 games left and the Tigers suddenly are six games under .500 (61-67) for the first time since July 31. They find themselves six games behind the White Sox in the Central Division — after the White Sox beat the Mets on a walk-off two-run homer by Rogers — and 2.5 back in the wild-card race with four teams between themselves and the Rangers, who hold the final spot.
The urgency to win has been high since the end of May. But it’s rapidly approaching do-or-die levels.
“I’m sure guys feel that way,” McKinstry said. “I always feel that way. You want to win every day. But it’s definitely hard. You have to win and we aren’t seeing the Ws going up like they were.”
The Tigers hitters couldn’t do anything against Royals lefty Noah Cameron. He shut them down over seven innings at Comerica Park on July 24. And he did it again Friday over five innings. He was at 85 pitches and he was coming off a complete-game, two-hit shutout in Anaheim, which is why his outing was shortened.
“He’s been good for a couple of months,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “He can throw whatever pitch he wants whenever he wants and that makes him unpredictable.”
Aside from the two runs in the seventh off former Tiger John Schreiber, there was nothing from the offense but 11 runners left on base. The Tigers were 2 for 10 with runners in scoring position.
“Their team took advantage of their opportunities and made more plays,” Hinch said.
It provided Tigers starter Troy Melton with very little room for error on a night he admittedly didn’t have his best stuff.
“I don’t think I threw the ball very well,” said Melton, who grinded through 5.2 innings on 94 pitches with three runs (two earned) on his ledger. “I didn’t execute in two-strike counts. That’s kind of been the story for a little bit. I don’t think it was terrible, by any means. I gave us a general chance to win the game. But there was a lot of hard contact and I wasn’t able to finish with two strikes and I walked three guys.”
He’s being hard on himself, for sure.
“Troy has been elite,” Hinch said. “I don’t think he did anything tonight he hasn’t done virtually every start. The margin for error was small.”
BOX SCORE: Royals 5, Tigers 2
It was evident early that he wasn’t as sharp as he’s been. He was missing his spots and didn’t seem to have a good feel for his cutter, which has been a difference-maker for him this season.
In his 5.2 innings, the Royals had put 20 balls in play with an average exit velocity of 92.3 mph. They put six cutters in play, three were hit hard, one left the yard. And as the game wore on, his four-seam fastball lost zip. He was throwing it 96 and 97 mph in the first inning, 93 and 94 mph in the sixth.
“He had to battle quite a bit,” Hinch said. “They kept chipping away and putting balls in play and had a couple of big swings. Credit to them for having a good approach and being able to keep the line moving and applying pressure on him.”
It’s actually a credit to Melton’s arsenal, and his poise, that he was able to limit the damage to three runs.
The Royals scored an unearned run in the fourth inning on two hard-hit balls, though both probably should’ve been fielded. Vinnie Pasquantino rifled a fastball 103.5 mph that ate up Spencer Torkelson at first base.
The ball rolled into shallow right field and Pasquantino rumbled into second with what was scored a double. With two outs, Michael Massey hit a ball to shortstop McGonigle’s left. It was hit hard, too, 100.7 mph, and McGonigle couldn’t field it.
That was scored an error.
And in the fifth, Melton put a 94-mph four-seamer in the heart of the plate and Kyle Isbel slugged it into the patio area in right-center.
The next two hitters reached but Melton gathered himself and struck out Jac Caglianone and got Salvador Perez to bounce into a 6-4-3 double-play on maybe the best cutter he’d thrown to that point.
But he threw another bad one to Pasquantino to lead off the sixth. That ball flew 409 feet into the seats in right.
“That was supposed to be away,” Melton said. “It was generally away, but more middle instead of on the edge.”
Hinch had lefty Tyler Holton warming in the fifth, presumably for Pasquantino, when Melton induced the double-play from Perez. He was asked what he liked about staying with Melton to start the sixth.
“We just can’t empty the bullpen,” Hinch said. “Troy’s been one of our best pitchers the entire season. At 76 pitches, he was going back out. “
Holton entered in the seventh and gave up a leadoff homer to lefty-swinging Carter Jensen.
Tigers pitchers have allowed 11 home runs from the sixth inning on over the last eight games.
Slip-sliding away.
“We’re not getting blown out, we are in these games,” Melton said. “There are things we can obviously do better to win some of these games. But I don’t think we are playing horribly. We are still close. We’ve put ourselves in a spot where we do need to win more these games. We all know what the situation is. Just keep going out and playing hard. Find some more breaks, find some more hits at the right time and these games could look a lot different.”
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Listless Tigers fall to Royals for sixth loss in last seven
Reporting by Chris McCosky, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Chris McCosky, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
